Supporters Make Their Pitch for Soda Tax at City Hall Rally

Delaine Eastin, flanked by a group of supporters, asks for council to put a soda tax on the ballot.

About 40 supporters of the soda tax made their case on Monday outside the Davis City Hall, requesting that the Davis City Council put a tax measure on the ballot for the June elections. However, they acknowledged the effort was a long shot, at least in the immediate future, as a general tax measure requires four votes on the Davis City Council.

The proposed one-cent per ounce tax on the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages will generate from $1-2 million annually. Revenue collected in Berkeley in the first year of its tax is projected to be over $1 million and has been earmarked for healthy living programs.

In Davis, the Social Service and Parks & Recreation Commissions, with the Davis Joint Unified School Board, will gather information from residents as to how tax revenues can best be spent each year to keep Davis children healthy and active, and will present recommendations to the council.

At Monday’s rally, it was former Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, Supervisor Don Saylor, Mayor Pro Tem Robb Davis and Former Davis Mayor Ann Evans who made the pitch.

Ms. Eastin asked that the city council “give the voters a chance to vote [for a] sugary drink tax.” She said, “The reality is this, we have an obesity crisis in California.”

“There is a lot of misrepresentation going on by the soda industry,” she explained. “They would have you believe, oh, we will raise taxes on sugary drinks to fix the roads – that is not true.”

Delaine Eastin speaks on Monday

As Superintendent of Public Instruction she toured schools in all 58 counties in California and said that parents and teachers alike are alarmed by the overweight conditions of our students. “This leads too often to things like Type-2 diabetes, to things like sleep apnea, and other impacts on health.”

She cited a UCLA study showing that being overweight can shorten your life by over 20 years. “We must be focused on the health of our children – the ounce of prevention that’s worth a pound of cure. Or an ounce less of sugar that’s worth a healthy child.”

The tax may reduce consumption, she said. “We hope so. The truth be known, kids are drinking, way, way, way too much sugar.” However, she called it “terrifying” how much sugar kids are consuming when they drink more than one soda in a day.

Ms. Eastin called the soda tax “a matter of letting the people decide.” She said, while we would join Berkeley in having this tax, we would be doing so “in a way that builds momentum across the state such that other communities will make this decision so that the information is spread that sugar drinks are really dangerous for our kids.”

Don Saylor speaks on Monday

Supervisor Don Saylor noted that it will take four votes to put this on the ballot, “A soda tax is really one of many measures we should be asking people if we want to pursue in our community.” He said, “We have so many kids in our community and communities like ours across California who are suffering from the early onset of diabetes. But that’s not even the worse issue facing them… public health officials are identifying them with fatty liver disease – it’s tearing our country apart, it’s hurting our kids, it’s going to cause future generations to falter.”

“So why aren’t we dealing with it?” he asked. “It takes courage stand here.” He noted, “It takes a considerable amount of courage in public life to stand up when you know there are strong interests lined up against what you’re saying and against what you’re trying to do.”

He called on the community to have the conversation about sugar-sweetened beverages. “We have to have that conversation – it’s not a matter of when, we need to do it right.”

“The conversation we’re talking about is putting the measure before the voters of Davis,” he added.

Robb Davis gave an impassioned speech

Mayor Pro Tem Robb Davis hearkened back to his time, 25 years ago in Africa, where he worked with malnourished and impoverished children and connected it to the current fight. He said, “I never thought that I would be standing here twenty-five years later talking about the challenges on the other end of the spectrum – of children, really whose lives are starting to be taken away by fatty liver disease and the problem of over-consumption of sugary beverages.”

“These are lives lost, these are lives changed, these are families altered in ways that we can’t take back,” he continued.

“The challenge of sugar beverages is quite simple, they’re a delivery mechanism,” he explained. “They deliver fructose to the liver in probably the most efficient means of doing so. Quickly. And rather than being cleared by the liver, that sugar stays there and is turned into fat and that fat and the inhibition of fat burning that goes along with it, means that all the precursors of diabetes, heart disease and coronary artery disease – the genesis is occurring in that location.”

“We’re talking about a broken food system,” he said referring the policy and monetary interests that have created this problem. “Fundamentally broken. Overproducing sugar and the over-promotion through advertising and marketing. This is what we’re up against.”

Mr. Davis noted that the research identifying these causal pathways is happening right here at UC Davis among other places. “We are at the epicenter of defining the problem,” he said.

Robb Davis said that people ask him what a tax in one city, like Davis, would do. He called it “the beginning of a process and a movement.”

He said that “there has been no public health campaign in any of our lifetimes that didn’t start with people in communities saying we need to change things.”

Robb Davis noted that tobacco laws didn’t come into place because there was “some overlord that dictated them.” Rather it was because research done at research institutions showed us that we were dying and we need to change. “Today, no one is smoking a cigarette here. No one is going to be smoking a cigarette anywhere around here and we’re all healthier for it,” he said.

He said we have an opportunity to make a change – “All I really want is to put this on the ballot.”

Former Davis Mayor Ann Evans flanked by Mayor Pro Tem Robb Davis

Former Davis Mayor Ann Evans said that she wanted to address the power of politics. “We are in front of a building where shortly there will be a decision made as to whether or not the people of this town have the right to make a decision about something as simple as a soda tax to create more programs, accessible programs for healthy children in our town.”

Ms. Evans noted that for the last 15 years she has been working on making school meals healthier. She noted that, while we spend $33 billion a year on food advertising, there is no money for simple school garden programs in the state.

“If we want that to occur, we have to support it at the local level,” she said. “This kind of soda tax gives its citizens and the council who speaks on our behalf the opportunity to provide every child in Davis that type of education.”

“We have a chance to add, to our revenue stream in Davis, a soda tax. But the council has to have the vision as well as the courage to allow us to decide and this would not be the first time Davis took a step that was unlike steps other cities are willing to take,” she said. “We have been a leader throughout my entire time in this city.”

She noted that Davis was the first to disinvest in South Africa, to provide regulations for solar and so on, and “now is the time for disinvesting in the kinds of sugary beverages that children are drinking by educating them about the importance of not drinking and giving them equal access to education and lifelong learning.”

“What is the hang up here?” she asked. “In my day, my council, this would have been on the ballot.”

Restaurant owners are claiming that the tax would be a big burden on them, she continued. The tax, she said, is on the distributors, the bottlers, those that “deliver the sugary drinks to Davis.”

She said that restaurant owners are warning that this will cause the cost of soda to go up. She said this is a good thing and she hopes that, much as the rise in the cost of cigarettes caused people to smoke less, raising the cost of soda will reduce consumption among our kids.

“When there were first proposals to tax cigarettes, like we’re proposing to tax sugary beverages, grocers said they’d go out of business,” she said. “I remember this. When there were first laws to stop smoking in restaurants… they said they’d go out of business.”

Ann Evans noted that when they located the Davis Farmer’s Market at Central Park, “the city council was flooded with businesses that didn’t want it to go there because it was unfair competition and would take customers away from them in the morning.” She said they were wrong about that and that it is the right thing to have a farmer’s market in town and it is the right thing to have a soda tax in town.

The four of them then demonstrated just how much sugar a small number of popular drinks produces:

The four speaker pour sugar from the beverages into a wheel barrelJust those dozen beverages produce nearly a wheel barrel worth of sugar

Supporters of the soda tax at Davis City Hall on Monday ask that the council put the measure on the ballot

The council has until February 16 to decide whether to act, and the matter will be on the agenda for discussion tonight.

About The Author

David Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that those of us in the health community have been using the “spreading information” approach for many, many years on both the individual and community health levels . These are the results we have.

I was unable to attend yesterday’s event, but I want to publicly thank every person who did who show up to raise awareness of what I see as one of the major health threats of our time. One comment particularly resonated with me.

“Mayor Pro Tem Robb Davis hearkened back to his time, 25 years ago in Africa, where he worked with malnourished and impoverished children and connected it to the current fight. He said, “I never thought that I would be standing here twenty-five years later talking about the challenges on the other end of the spectrum – of children, really whose lives are starting to be taken away by fatty liver disease and the problem of over-consumption of sugary beverages”.

I hear you Robb. At the same time that you were in Africa, I was a General Medical Officer on the Tohono Ottam reservation outside of Tucson. At that time 1/2 of the adults qualified as obese ( by BMI =/> 30) and 1/4 of the population was diagnosed with Type II diabetes by age 40. At the time, I saw this as a local population issue. I never thought that 25 years from them, I would be confronting this epidemic ( although the numbers are still lower) in our general population…..and yet here counseling patients daily on this issue right here in Davis until 3 months ago, and now daily in Sacramento.

I am not asking that any CC member, or any member of the public agree with me on this issue. I am asking that this be allowed to go to a vote of the people.

It is allowed, without any staff research (costs from the GF) or action by the council… it’s called the ‘initiative process’… if this is so damn crucial, why would that not be pursued by the advocates for the proposed tax?

After all, the City is expending the money (and staff effort) to date, and moving forward, and if there is not enough support to get the 5% voter commitment for the initiative process, isn’t this a hollow, posturing, effort?

To the advocates, quit-your-bitchin’, organize an initiative, get it on the ballot, and we’ll vote…

Get a clue… according to the article, the CC needs an 80% vote to put it on… citizens need about 5%…

Hpierce: As I understand it, the initiative process requires something on the order of 7000 signatures. The vote would require a 2/3rds majority. So those are two pretty compelling reasons to seek to have council put it on the ballot. I talked the organizers yesterday and they recognize it’s a long-shot to get four, but they see this as the start of the process, not the end.

OK… there is something I don’t understand… I thought this was proposed as a general tax… I thought it took a 4/5 vote by CC to go on the ballot… I thought if CC did put it on the ballot, it would require a 50%+1 vote to pass…

Why, if brought forward with an initiative, as a general tax, would it require a ‘super-majority” to pass? Am just not getting your argument on difficulty level… if it can’t get 7000 signatures (seems high), how would it pass even with the lower threshold?

Thinking about this more and more… there has been no concrete proposal for the rate… no concrete proposal for how the proceeds are expended… no concrete proposal for how it would be administrated, or by who… NO CONCRETE PROPOSAL!

Is CC/staff supposed to guess what would “work”? Sounds like the advocates re saying we’re thinking of a number between one and one hundred, an we expect you to find that number and place a viable measure on the ballot ASAP.

This sure looks like a political, not substantive ploy… the issue is important, but the proposed “solution”, sure looks bogus.

I have NOTHING to gain politically from this. I have made my case over many weeks here and elsewhere about why I believe this is an important measure.

I will receive no money for doing so, need no votes for anything, have no future prospects tied to this matter… In other words, I have nothing personally nor politically to gain from this. I have no other motive than trying to raise the profile and begin to deal with a major public health crisis.

“I have NOTHING to gain politically from this. I have made my case over many weeks here and elsewhere about why I believe this is an important measure.

I will receive no money for doing so, need no votes for anything, have no future prospects tied to this matter… In other words, I have nothing personally nor politically to gain from this. I have no other motive than trying to raise the profile and begin to deal with a major public health crisis.”

As usual you have expressed my sentiments and my position much more succinctly and eloquently than I. However, I would point out to other posters here that I also have absolutely nothing to gain politically, personally, financially or socially from the passage of this measure. My interest is in addressing what you have correctly identified as a major public health crisis.

“it was simply a statement of fact. Some people are not in a position to tell other folks what they should eat.”

I will agree that it is likely a statement of the facts as you see them. Because I know that what you have presented as “fact” does not apply to me, I have arrived at the conclusion that this is not actually “fact” but rather your firmly held belief which happens to differ from mine.

And I agree that “some people are not in a position to tell other folks what they should eat”. However, since this has been an integral part of my job as a primary care provider and particularly as a dietary counselor of pregnant women, could you at least concede that perhaps I might have some insight into sound dietary practices that others may not and that as a doctor I might see it as part of my responsibility to speak out on this issue to at the very least “educate” others as Alan Miller and others here have suggested ?

Because there is research that suggests that soda/ sugar sweetened beverages to be precise has the biggest bang for the buck on fighting obesity. It’s not the only place. Delaine pointed out ten years ago they got soda machines out of schools.

The physiologic issue of “why pick on soda” has been addressed multiple times in various threads. As a practicing doctor, I can assure you that there are very good physiologic reasons for “picking on sodas”. Whether or not you believe that to be true would be something that I would seem to have not addressed to your satisfaction, or you have not chosen to read my previous posts, those of Robb, or those of Mark Rudd or Dr. Goldstein.

To this viewpoint, I would point out the same analogy that I previously addressed to Alan Miller. The train coming down the tracks does not care whether or not you believe that it will hurt you if it hits you. The outcome will be the same. The adverse effects of excessive sugar consumption with sodas being an extremely effective form of excessive sugar administration in very little time, will have disastrous consequences for our individual and societal health if we continue down the track we are on. As a doctor, I advise that we move off the tracks, and if I saw you standing on them, I believe that I would be remiss if I did not attempt to persuade you to step off, or even to give you a nudge if I perceived your peril, but you did not.

the same analogy that I previously addressed to Alan Miller. The train coming down the tracks does not care whether or not you believe that it will hurt you if it hits you. The outcome will be the same.

Tia, you might notice I don’t stand on the tracks when a train is coming.

“This sure looks like a political, not substantive ploy… the issue is important, but the proposed “solution”, sure looks bogus.”

Since, as you correctly point out, there is no definitive proposal yet, I do not see how it could be considered as “bogus” any more than it could be considered a “good plan” yet. As I interpreted events, all the CC did so far is to request that staff provide them with more information. If I perceive the plan put forward as a good one ( which I agree is open to agreement or disagreement) then I will either advocate for it going forward, or not. What I have asked for so far is to see a ballot worthy plan that we can vote on. I find it interesting that others have already decided against it, or that it is only political, or that it will not be effective, or that it is “bogus” before even seeing the plan.

And as I have said repeatedly, for me it is anything but political. If you think that I am lying, please explain to me exactly how you believe that I would benefit directly from a soda tax.

As you know, good doctor, genes do not express the same ways, in all circumstances… yet, you have chosen not to respond to the SUBSTANCE of my post… which, could be possibly perceived as another form of ‘sarcasm’. Probably ‘mirror’ time-out for both of us… will be for me, at least today… best to you and yours…

If I had said “consider and think” rather than “get a clue”, would that have been ‘friendly’ enough?

“If I had said “consider and think” rather than “get a clue”, would that have been ‘friendly’ enough? “

The issue for me is not “friendliness” but rather respectful consideration of ideas. And yes, it would certainly have made a difference in my perception of your intent.

And I disagree that I did not respond to the substance of your post. It is possible that you did not see this portion of my same post :

“I agree that this is certainly one alternative”

which I made in response to your your suggestion of an initiative. Or perhaps you did not see this as adequately addressing your point. If, so please let me know which portion of your post you feel that I overlooked and I will respond just as soon as able.

A $0.01 tax per ounce could really rake in the dough in Davis. That 20 ounce bottle of Coke could cost upwards of $1.50, which might not deter kids from buying it anyways. But in large quantities, like 12 packs, that cost could turn parents a different direction. That’s $0.20 per 20 ounce bottle, and that can really go a long way.

But the consumer this is aimed at, children, probably would buy it anyways, since they are likely purchasing the soda in smaller quantities, and another quarter isn’t that big of a deal.

And let’s say this tax passes. Where is the money going to go? Into another general fund account? I’d rather see it tied, in writing, to either infrastructure repair or parks and rec upkeep. But until I see where this money will go, how can I support the tax?

I would phrase this differently. What I am trying to do is to persuade enough people to share my vision to have them vote for the measure. Nothing more and nothing less. What I want is for a change to vote on this. What you seem to want is to prevent others from having an opportunity to vote on the issue. Please correct me if I am in error about your position.

Please Tia Will, do you think we should be voting on every tax measure some small group of Davis activists try and push past city council? I say no. We don’t want or need social engineers dictating to our council what things need to be taxed so people might use less of it.

“Please Tia Will, do you think we should be voting on every tax measure some small group of Davis activists try and push past city council?”

And I say “no” also to the question as you posed it. What I believe is that each issue should be judged on its own merits. We just happen to disagree on the merits of this particular measure. So why is it that you feel that you should have the right to advocate for your assessment of the measure, but apparently would attempt to deny me the same right ?

Who’s stopping you from advocating for it? Not me. You certainly do fight for it almost every day on this blog and at city council meetings. That’s your right, but it’s also my right to fight against it.

And also, Mr Frankly, I have debated this with you on the VG in the past (though I have no idea what you are fishing for now–are you cleverly trying to lure me into some intellectual pit from which I can’t extract myself? I wonder…).

Much to the chagrin of local $15/hour supporters I do NOT support a local minimum. I do support a state or national minimum (or guaranteed wage as some conservatives (real ones) have called for.

And I will just note, because I want to just note it, several of the struggling shop owners who claimed the sugary beverage would kill their businesses also admitted that they sell soft drinks as a loss leader to get people in the store to buy other things. Just interesting…

The reason for this challenge is the obvious conflict with the argument that raising the price of one thing (soda) will decrease the consumption of it while raising the price of another thing (labor) will just be absorbed by everyone as the new normal.

Well-off people will still pay for the gas and just have less discretionary income to spend on other things that goes to business that pays the wages of lower income workers that cannot afford the cost increase.

You are getting into price elasticity. It varies based on economic class.

Why don’t you just check consumption statistics when gas was more than a dollar a gallon more than it is today? What I understand is that even at the much lower cost, gas consumption per capita is lower.

You are getting into price elasticity. It varies based on economic class.

That was my point. There is a point at which the sugar tax would affect consumption. But this proposal is, very likely, nowhere near that point. We don’t know for sure; another couple of years of the Berkeley tax would give more data, though it might be hard to separate out other trends.

“And also Robb Davis, do you support raising the minimum wage in Davis or throughout the state?”

Not Robb Davis, but happy to respond. My preference would be nationally in the form of a UBI, but I will take what I can get on the local, state or federal level and hope that a living wage becomes the norm nationally with built in protections for the small businessman such as Don Shor who this might adversely affect.

Well, I think we do have some evidence that it will do some good. Mexico has seen a decline in consumption as the result of their tax. Moreover, I think that the parallels to the cigarette experience are there. I don’t think this is the end of the story, but rather a piece of the puzzle. As someone who suffers from diabetes, I think this is a good place to start.

You know… this type of thinking you demonstrate really bothers me. Because it clearly indicates that you hold a large percent of the population in very low regard.

The primary reason that the use of cigarettes has dropped is because of education about the health risks of cigarette smoking, and probably some of the restrictions for where peope can smoke because of the risks of second-hand smoke, and not because of the tax on cigarettes. All the tax does is cause even more harm (financial) to those addicted.

This is really an interesting liberal social justice pursuit thing… willing to financially-harm those they claim to care the most about to break their addiction to things that they – liberal social justice folk – think are bad for them (the low-capability low-income people)… without any real evidence that the tax increase will actually do much to break their addiction.

Either social justice liberals care more about their political agenda than they do the people they claim to be supporting… or they expect to just keep increasing the welfare flow to people incapable of ever learning to take care of themselves.

Either of those two explanations is very troubling to me because they smack of elitism.

Frerichs is knocking it out of the park. Just like I said this soda tax came out of left field and as he is saying it didn’t come up until 2 months ago at public comment. The talk has been about roads and infrastructure, not about revenue for health issues. Like he said, we’re taking our eye off the ball.

7000 signatures isn’t likely, but I think 2/3 is likely if the money is clearly tied to specific spending with success metrics and accountability analyses built into each year’s Budget process. This is all about building trust and reducing distrust.

Our Advertisers

About Us

The Vanguard provides the Davis Community with incisive in-depth coverage of local government on a wide variety of issues. Since 2006, The Vanguard has provided Davis and Yolo County with some of the best groundbreaking news coverage on local government and policy issues affecting our city, our schools, the county, and the Sacramento Region.